Ilaria Zorzi and her female team: «We honor the lives that are no longer there, but who continue to see through someone else’s eyes»

Restore sight to restore life: sight is one of the first senses to be stimulated and it is also the first that allows us to get an idea of ​​space and the world. Through our eyes we not only see, but we also construct our perception of what surrounds us. Here it is have a visual defect which invalidates vision 100%, causing blindnessor partially, causing low visioncan lead a person to change their way of life or to isolate themselves.

For this reason, whoever decides is precious to donate their corneas in the event of death and is equally precious work of those who take care of the entire process from donor to recipientso that suitable fabrics arrive in a timely manner.

«Ours is care workeven if we are in the laboratory: we take care of the patient who will receive it, but also of the gesture of those who have decided to donate a piece of themselves, so that someone else can see again.” The doctor’s eyes shine – to stay on topic Ilaria Zorzi, doctor and head of the department Donation Medicine of the Veneto Eye Bank Foundationlocated in Mestre, on the outskirts of Venice, among the top banks in Europe for the number of corneas collected and distributed, regional reference center for corneal transplants in Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia and reference for the collection of ocular tissues also for the Autonomous Province of Trento, Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily and Sardinia.

Non-profit organization, founded in 1987 from an idea of ​​the professor Giovanni Rama, ophthalmologist surgeon, and the entrepreneur Cavaliere del Lavoro Dr. Piergiorgio Coin, was founded by the Veneto Region and began operating in 1989. Today it is chaired by Dr. Giuseppe Di Falco.

Fondazione Banca degli Occhi del Veneto has a primary role in Italy in transplant medicine: collects almost 6 thousand ocular tissues every year and works to send over 4 thousand tissues for corneal transplants throughout Italy. In fact, if the Venetian structure has as its first objective that of distributing ocular tissues for transplantation to the ophthalmology departments of the Veneto, the role that the bank maintains at a national level is historic with the sending of tissues to over 200 transplant centers and the collaboration with 364 ophthalmological surgeons distributed throughout Italy.

Dr. Zorzi has been the head of a team for over ten years, which she has always been over time made up of women only: «It has always been casual, but I believe it is the work we do that appeals to our sensitivity», comments Zorzi.